Pedro Rey Biel

I am a Behavioral Economist who combines theoretical and empirical methodologies, as well as laboratory and field experiments to understand economic decision making and how it is affected by the design of proper incentive schemes which take into account the complex array of behavioral traits behind human motivation.

I am a certified Full Professor of Economics (ANECA 2025, AQU 2018). My current position is Associate Professor of Behavioral Economics at ESADE Business School, Ramón Llull University (Barcelona, Spain), where I work for the GLIGP research group. At ESADE we have a strong  behavioral group working under the umbrellas of the ESADE Decision Lab and the Institute for Data-Driven Decisions. I am also de the director of the Policy Impact Lab, part of the Centre for Economic Policy & Political Economy (ESADE EcPol), pushing for policy evaluation, public data availability and experimentation. I am also a BSE Research Fellow and a J-PAL Poverty Action Lab affiliated researcher. My research is currently supported by an ICREA Academia contract.

I have published my work in leading academic journals in economics such as The American Economic Review, The Journal of the European Economic Association, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, The Economic Journal and  European Economic Review as well as in leading field journals such as Journal of Labor Economics, The Journal of Public Economics, Quantitative Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Experimental Economics and Journal of Economic Psychology. My work has regularly appeared in popular media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. I am also a regular contributor to the popular Economics blog Nada es Gratis, where I served as editor (2015-2019) and as President of its Association (2017 to 2019). I am also a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Frontiers in Behavioral Economics, NPJ Digital Medicine (Nature), Journal of Experimental and Behavioral Economics and SERIEs Journal of the Spanish Economic Association.

Most of my work implies collaborating with public and private institutions in the application of behavioral insights to optimal organizational design.  I have been part of the research team of the Laboratorio de Políticas de Inclusión at Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones, and of CETRA, the group for public administration reform at the Government of Catalunya. Please take a look at my Consulting page for a sample of institutions for which I have designed Randomized Control Trails (RCTs), implemented organizational changes and incentives schemes, and conducted executive education workshops.

Finally, I am an Honorary Member of Asociación Española de Economía, where I was an elected member of its board (2017-2020) and served as President of its Education Committee. Since 2018 I have been a member of the Education Committee of  the European Economic Association and since 2023 an executive committee member of the Economic Science Association. I have also now ended my 5 year tenure as member of the Economics Evaluation Committee at Agencia Estatal de Investigación.